Hardware Store Fined $53,000 After Worker Injured in Fall
- An administrative court has fined Home Hardware Stores Ltd. of St. Jacobs, Ontario 75,000 Canadian dollars ($53,000) after a worker suffered critical injuries in a November 2023 fall. He was hurt while descending an aluminum shelf ladder used to monitor water levels in a fire management system reservoir roughly 10 feet above the basement floor of the company’s warehouse.
- An investigation by the Ontario Ministry of Labor, Immigration, Training and Skills Development found the worker regularly accessed the reservoir using the shelf ladder but had not received ladder safety training as part of their orientation.
- After the incident, the company introduced ladder safety training, replaced the aluminum shelf ladder with rolling staircase ladders featuring a top platform, guardrails, and brakes, required spotters for ladder use, and shifted responsibility for water level checks to the maintenance team.
MIOSHA Warns Employers About Dangers of Wildfire Smoke
- After air quality worsened to hazardous levels in Michigan due to elevated fine particulate matter (PM2.5) from ongoing Canadian wildfires, the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration notified employers about their obligations to protect workers.
- MIOSHA has no standard specifically addressing wildfire smoke exposure, so employer obligations fall back on the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Act’s General Duty Clause, which requires a workplace free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious harm. For employers with outdoor or poorly ventilated staff, that means they must take reasonable steps once hazardous smoke conditions become foreseeable.
- Recommended protective measures include monitoring air quality through resources like the EPA’s AirNow, shifting or relocating outdoor tasks, scaling back strenuous physical activity, encouraging breaks in smoke-free areas, and moving work indoors where HVAC systems with high-efficiency filters are available.
- Employers may also allow voluntary use of NIOSH-approved respirators even when not otherwise required and must train workers in their safe usage and in accordance with Appendix D of OSHA’s Respiratory Protection Standard if they do so.
Worker Killed by Falling Steel Beams
- A 44-year-old man was killed at Allied Crawford Steel, a steel service center in North Charleston, South Carolina, when a bundle of steel beams collapsed onto him around 10 a.m. Wednesday while he and a coworker were offloading a truck.
- A witness told police the victim had climbed onto the hoist near the truck’s cab to wrap the bundle with a chain when the rear portion of the bundle, closest to the back of the truck, fell onto him; he died within minutes.
- The witness said only the half of the bundle closest to the truck’s cab had been properly secured.
- The victim’s name has not yet been released, and authorities are continuing to investigate the incident.